It took a long time, but now our little pup Timmy is confidently able to manoeuvre the main stairs in the building, the stairs at the park, and the stairs pretty much everywhere. Except the ones in our house. This likely goes back to the little fall he had when he was just learning. Since then, Mike has been working tirelessly trying to build up his confidence by helping him up the last few stairs every night. We still have a lot of progress to make though. Well…at least we thought so!

Last night we were getting ready for bed upstairs, leaving Timmy downstairs to play. I had just gone into the bedroom to moisturize, when I heard the unmistakable sound of dog claws on hardwood. I whipped around and saw little Timmy running down the hall towards me! He did it! All by himself!!!

We were so proud. And, of course, now he is just showing off by following us around the house, upstairs and down. He even managed to make it upstairs with his bone! It was miraculous really.

And now we realize our shoe-hiding place on the stairs is no longer safe! Now we will actually have to clean up after ourselves and put them away! *groan*

So while I was in Chatham, my dad was determined to get Tim Tam to take the stairs. Up until that point we had just been carrying him up and down. I had read in a number of books that puppies are still developing their depth perception and muscles, so stairs could be quite dangerous for them. At home he became quite comfortable going up and down the 5 wooden stairs to the back deck, which was quite exciting. But I guess its like when your kid learns to walk…exciting, but brings in a whole new range of dangers.

With his newfound confidence, Tim was determined to get up our stairs at home. Our highly lacquered and polished wooden stairs. He made it quite well! The first time that is. The second time I turned around just in time to see him fall…rolling stair over stair on his back and belly. It was horrifying. He fell a total of about 5 stairs.

And was completely unfazed. He reached the bottom, got up, and began wagging his tail! As the “mom” I tried to act cool, so as not to upset him, and that seemed to work.

He has no injuries, physical OR mental from the incident, but he is being a little more cautious now!